Tag Archives: Kyrsten Sinema

No stranger to controversy, freshman Sen. Lori Klein might have waded into another one after she pointed a loaded gun at the chest of a reporter who was profiling her as a part of a series on gun culture in Arizona.

On several occasions, the Senate majority leader voted with the losing side — and against the majority in his caucus.

Those occasions are a stark reminder that the man Republicans picked as caucus leader is a fiscal conservative with a libertarian streak, who backs or supports measures depending on how they hew to or diverge from his reading of the U.S. Constitution.

A “birther” bill here, a measure to allow guns on college campuses there. Arizona does produce more thoughtful and complex legislation, yet we still can’t shake the Donald Trump-levels of attention every time we do something that everybody else thinks is stupid.

But now the business community is launching an effort many believe will change all of that.

The proposal to require presidential candidates to prove they are natural-born American citizens before their names can appear on the Arizona ballot inched closer to the finish line on Tuesday, when the Senate approved it in a party-line vote.

Fiscally conservative Republicans won the argument when the governor agreed to forego borrowing and other budget gimmicks to help shore up the state’s sagging revenues, and the budget-slashing proposal was also a vindication for legislators who saw themselves as lone voices in the wilderness, warning for many years that politicians’ appetite for spending would one day come back to haunt them.